Idly musing on TB vs RTwP ...

[gurugeorge]

There's definitely a tension at the heart of the very idea of the CRPG as soon as you bring story into the game.

Well, don't. Problem solved.

But then you're missing out on an aspect of what could, ideally and potentially, be a kind of gesamtkunstwerk that engages more parts of you than just the puzzle-solving part. And I think that's kind of the central attraction of the CRPG genre - that it's like a world in miniature where you have some freedom of choice, some constraints, and problems that require several aspects of your being to solve, plus on top of that you're being a character in a story instead of reading about them.

 

[mondblut]

But then you're missing out on an aspect of what could, ideally and potentially, be a kind of gesamtkunstwerk that engages more parts of you than just the puzzle-solving part. And I think that's kind of the central attraction of the CRPG genre - that it's like a world in miniature where you have some freedom of choice, some constraints, and problems that require several aspects of your being to solve, plus on top of that you're being a character in a story instead of reading about them.

The story is whatever you make out of it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't think you mean rtwp but action RPG, rtwp has a specific definition that isn't equal to its name.

turn-based games are worse at creating immersive(for lack of a better word) combat because you have unlimited time to think about every action. True rtwp does not differ here at all.
Would turn-based RPGs have better combat with a timer for turns? probably. Would most of the codex shit their diapers and cry about it? definitely.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

turn-based games are worse at creating immersive(for lack of a better word) combat because you have unlimited time to think about every action

Not necessarily true, some TB's rarely have limited time for decision making.
If I remember correctly that was an option in JA 2.

 

[JarlFrank]

You make a statement that RTwP is better for immersion, but it’s just that: A statement.

What are your reasons for saying that? I wholeheartedly disagree ofc, but curious to hear your rationale.

Bearing in mind that I'm using the sense of "immersion" that puts it close to "presence," the sense of "being there," immersion in a virtual world and story can be interrupted by bouts of intricate turn-based gameplay - or vice-versa. One can find one is falling between two stools: either the story becomes a chore to get through to experience the next encounter puzzle, or the encounters become chores to get through to see the next bit of story.

Because RTwP can afford to be looser in terms of encounter design (more trash fights), there can be more of a sense of continuity of immersion - instead of popping from one mental mode to another (from puzzle solving to story following), one can feel more of a sense of continuity, one can stay more present in the virtual world itself, with the encounter feeling more like a natural obstacle in that virtual world (as opposed to something special that requires your brain to switch modes).

I find this to be very flawed reasoning.

To me, a good turn based RPG doesn't tear me out of the immersion flow. If the encounters are good and the combat exciting, it stays immersive all the way through. Entering turn based mode during a fight is no less immersion-breaking than hitting the pause button in RTwP.

In fact, I find RtwP less immersive most of the time, because a lot of RtwP systems suck, especially when there's companion AI involved and they do retarded shit (hello there NWN 1 where I have no direct control over companions, and they keep suiciding by provoking AoOs by using their crossbow within enemy melee range). In turn-based systems where I control my entire party, there are tense moments but they're always fully within my control and it makes for a better flow imo.

 

[gurugeorge]

To me, RPG combat is immersive if it requires my full attention as opposed to half-assing my way through 95% of encounters. "Immersion" in the sense of getting a feel for the game world comes through outside of combat, assuming the game handles that well.

But accepting the premise that for some people, continuous action makes them feel more a part of a game world: Doesn't pausing ruin that? It seems more like an argument for Real Time combat rather than Real Time With Pause combat. I don't play many RTWP games but when I do, I'm pausing all the time during any encounter that poses any kind of challenge because AI sucks and needs to be constantly corrected. And during easy encounters, I just let my group do their thing until everything is dead, which doesn't require my full attention and isn't immersive. I guess my main point is: RTWP by definition isn't anything close to continuous action and when it is, it is because the game is too easy.

I dunno, I think pausing is actually quite a different thing from discrete turns - at least psychologically. So long as you're pausing, you're pausing in a time that's otherwise flowing more or less normally, whereas with turns, the time is being parceled out into abstracted chunks, so you're outside time, the virtual time of the virtual world, at that point.

 

[gurugeorge]

I don't think you mean rtwp but action RPG, rtwp has a specific definition that isn't equal to its name.

turn-based games are worse at creating immersive(for lack of a better word) combat because you have unlimited time to think about every action. True rtwp does not differ here at all.
Would turn-based RPGs have better combat with a timer for turns? probably. Would most of the codex shit their diapers and cry about it? definitely.

Yeah good point.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

To me, RPG combat is immersive if it requires my full attention as opposed to half-assing my way through 95% of encounters. "Immersion" in the sense of getting a feel for the game world comes through outside of combat, assuming the game handles that well.

But accepting the premise that for some people, continuous action makes them feel more a part of a game world: Doesn't pausing ruin that? It seems more like an argument for Real Time combat rather than Real Time With Pause combat. I don't play many RTWP games but when I do, I'm pausing all the time during any encounter that poses any kind of challenge because AI sucks and needs to be constantly corrected. And during easy encounters, I just let my group do their thing until everything is dead, which doesn't require my full attention and isn't immersive. I guess my main point is: RTWP by definition isn't anything close to continuous action and when it is, it is because the game is too easy.

I dunno, I think pausing is actually quite a different thing from discrete turns - at least psychologically. So long as you're pausing, you're pausing in a time that's otherwise flowing more or less normally, whereas with turns, the time is being parceled out into abstracted chunks, so you're outside time, the virtual time of the virtual world, at that point.

What about games where a turn itself might be irregular chunk of time depending action you're chosen?
Titans of Steel for example.

 

[gurugeorge]

But then you're missing out on an aspect of what could, ideally and potentially, be a kind of gesamtkunstwerk that engages more parts of you than just the puzzle-solving part. And I think that's kind of the central attraction of the CRPG genre - that it's like a world in miniature where you have some freedom of choice, some constraints, and problems that require several aspects of your being to solve, plus on top of that you're being a character in a story instead of reading about them.

The story is whatever you make out of it.

That can be true with some types of story, but you can reduce that point to absurdity - the Pong paddles represent Oceania and Eastasia, why do we need coloured sprites?

There's value in having a story given to you that you fit into too, and that's an artistic endeavour by the creators.

 

[Mustawd]

Immersion =/= realistic. Not sure why it’s being touted that way.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the word he's looking for is tension

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Immersion =/= realistic. Not sure why it’s being touted that way.

I've often found that more "realistic" looking games takes me more easily out of immersion, because lesser mistakes in simulation come more apparent.
Sometimes it's just ok to play an abstracted game.

 

[gurugeorge]

To me, RPG combat is immersive if it requires my full attention as opposed to half-assing my way through 95% of encounters. "Immersion" in the sense of getting a feel for the game world comes through outside of combat, assuming the game handles that well.

But accepting the premise that for some people, continuous action makes them feel more a part of a game world: Doesn't pausing ruin that? It seems more like an argument for Real Time combat rather than Real Time With Pause combat. I don't play many RTWP games but when I do, I'm pausing all the time during any encounter that poses any kind of challenge because AI sucks and needs to be constantly corrected. And during easy encounters, I just let my group do their thing until everything is dead, which doesn't require my full attention and isn't immersive. I guess my main point is: RTWP by definition isn't anything close to continuous action and when it is, it is because the game is too easy.

I dunno, I think pausing is actually quite a different thing from discrete turns - at least psychologically. So long as you're pausing, you're pausing in a time that's otherwise flowing more or less normally, whereas with turns, the time is being parceled out into abstracted chunks, so you're outside time, the virtual time of the virtual world, at that point.

What about games where a turn itself might be irregular chunk of time depending action you're chosen?
Titans of Steel for example.

I don't know that game, but it sounds interesting. There are probably all sorts of ways of doing time in games. I know I like the kind of dynamic action queue some games have, where you can bump yourself up not just by having a static initiative stat, but by direct actions (e.g. a kind of Haste, etc.).

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

To me, RPG combat is immersive if it requires my full attention as opposed to half-assing my way through 95% of encounters. "Immersion" in the sense of getting a feel for the game world comes through outside of combat, assuming the game handles that well.

But accepting the premise that for some people, continuous action makes them feel more a part of a game world: Doesn't pausing ruin that? It seems more like an argument for Real Time combat rather than Real Time With Pause combat. I don't play many RTWP games but when I do, I'm pausing all the time during any encounter that poses any kind of challenge because AI sucks and needs to be constantly corrected. And during easy encounters, I just let my group do their thing until everything is dead, which doesn't require my full attention and isn't immersive. I guess my main point is: RTWP by definition isn't anything close to continuous action and when it is, it is because the game is too easy.

I dunno, I think pausing is actually quite a different thing from discrete turns - at least psychologically. So long as you're pausing, you're pausing in a time that's otherwise flowing more or less normally, whereas with turns, the time is being parceled out into abstracted chunks, so you're outside time, the virtual time of the virtual world, at that point.

What about games where a turn itself might be irregular chunk of time depending action you're chosen?
Titans of Steel for example.

I don't know that game, but it sounds interesting. There are probably all sorts of ways of doing time in games. I know I like the kind of dynamic action queue some games have, where you can bump yourself up not just by having a static initiative stat, but by direct actions (e.g. a kind of Haste, etc.).

It's pity that most developers shy away from these kinds of systems even when they initially pitch their games as such.
Mechajammer (aka Copper Dreams) and demo of Slaves of Magic had some promise for asynchcroniuous turns, but both shied away from that.

 

[Atchodas]

Turn based games exclude player skill from the game, and turns every encounter into if you know how/have the levels then you execute if you dont you fail and reload and now you know whats up and do it correctly this time.

Meanwhile RTWP is skill based genre so casuals dislike it.

 

[Faarbaute]

Turn based games exclude player skill from the game, and turns every encounter into if you know how/have the levels then you execute if you dont you fail and reload and now you know whats up and do it correctly this time.

Meanwhile RTWP is skill based genre so casuals dislike it.

I feel like this cuts to the heart of what playing a RPG actually is though.

Your skills should not trump your characters skills.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Turn based games exclude player skill from the game, and turns every encounter into if you know how/have the levels then you execute if you dont you fail and reload and now you know whats up and do it correctly this time.

Meanwhile RTWP is skill based genre so casuals dislike it.

Player skill is quite evident in any competently-designed turn-based combat system, although it does not include physical skill but instead mental skills concerning the utilization of assets and game mechanics, as well as party customization outside of combat to generate the composition of assets available in combat.

Real-Time with Pause combat systems lack either the action-based physical-skill requirements possible with real-time systems (Demon's/Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, etc.) or the considered tactics possible with turn-based systems, instead combining the worst aspects of both.

 

[gurugeorge]

Turn based games exclude player skill from the game, and turns every encounter into if you know how/have the levels then you execute if you dont you fail and reload and now you know whats up and do it correctly this time.

Meanwhile RTWP is skill based genre so casuals dislike it.

I disagree with this. RTwP isn't really twitchy, it's not reactive, utilizing physical player skills, it's proactive, pre-emptive. (IOW if you're reacting all the time in a semi panic in RTwP you're doing it wrong - although that's probably the way a lot of casual players play it, and that's fine too on easier settings.)

Essentially you're just picking and choosing your moments to scan the battlefield, the conditions and options of your forces, the conditions and options of the enemy forces, as opposed to having those moments thrust on you in a more abstracted, regimented way as in TB. In a tough fight, there's not really such a huge difference between the two forms of gameplay. Maybe just that because of the time and stepwise clarity, you can be more focused on optimum Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C strategies in TB, as opposed to sort of "satisficing" the encounter.

I suppose that because of the tension element Rusty talks about above, you could say that you're using your eyes in more of a "twitchy" way. But it's really pretty much just psychological - though I do say that the psychological element is what makes most of the difference I'm talking about wrt the congeniality of TB vs RTwP in relation to encounter-driven and story-driven games respectively (plus also how the developer fills in the player's time - fewer but deeper encounters that will take more time in and of themselves, vs. more encounters, more trashy encounters, and then some peak tough ones that can be pretty close to TB encounters in their depth and complexity).

 

[Adenocaulon]

Maybe it is fine if a game is developed with a real time combat system, and then the possibility to use an active pause is added.

But if a turn/round based system is used as the base of a real time combat then there is a problem. It would be fine if you can switch between turn based and real time for easy battles, but if you only have the real time with pause mode for these system, it is inferior to other alternatives.

 

[CryptRat]

It's pity that most developers shy away from these kinds of systems even when they initially pitch their games as such.
Mechajammer (aka Copper Dreams) and demo of Slaves of Magic had some promise for asynchcroniuous turns, but both shied away from that.

Some thoughts about WEGO, maybe I'm wrong.

In blobbers WEGO obviously works. In this case we're mostly talking about simultaneous choices and sequential resolution (EDIT : if the resolution was simultaneous then a character who died "before" performing his action during the current round would still perform his action, that can be done just as easily and would certainly work but that's generally not the case, probably because a game is more fun with sequential resolution) by the way.

However, is there even one WEGO classic D&D style RPG with positioning and melee combat out there which works? Or at least a wargame but which is quite close to that, not any wargame? I am really not an expert but my impression is that with positioning all the provided examples of WEGO seem to be something else, tactic games which work quite differently such as Battle Isle, Power, Breach & Clear or Frozen Synapse, with some specific combat mechanics with very specific targetting systems, they're not games with classic choices of a combat action leave alone classic targetting. I think that with Mechajammer and they're probably not the only ones when they start really thinking about everything it implies regarding targetting especially then they eventually realise the result would not be what they envisioned at all then they switch to something else more traditional. I think it's not as easy to do as people say, even if once again I may be wrong.

Some things can work in theory, like simultaneous vague choice of action (a character chooses to cast a fireball) but sequential resolution and targetting during resolution (only when it resolves the character chooses the area of effect) or simultaneous movement then simultaneous actions but the characters won't move during actions but these things seem worse than a traditional turn-based system to me, and you're doing that because you'd like to do WEGO but that's finally nothing like WEGO anyway so it is pointless.



There's one specific thing I'd like to talk about though'.

One thing I really like about WEGO with sequential resolution is that you can take into account the speed of the chosen actions to compute initiative order (even if unfortunately my impression from both playing blobbers and reading the manuals of these games is that they mostly don't).

In the vein of what I described above you can include such mechanics in a turn-based game, characters vaguely choose an action (move + melee, cast a fireball) then you roll for initiative taking the speed of the actions and then the resolution (targetting, especially) is executed sequencially. Let's take the precise situation where you want some randomness in how some characters will manage to escape from a fireball or not. Then this is not strictly the same than having, typically, preparation times, an area of effect decided when launching the spell (not when it resolves) and for whatever reason some randomness and/or hidden information put into those. I think that's vaguely interesting, and it is also interesting when playing P&P, but I am not certain it's really interesting in a video game and it's, in my opinion, again not WEGO anyway.

 

[Goldschmidt]

Full disclosure back when I was playing virgin Fallout 1 turn-based combat, a girl I was trying to get with started going out with a chad LoL player who smoked weed non-stop. This might have negatively affected my perception of wasting your life with TB combat games.

Imagine having sex turn based, the girl thinks. Virgin fallout 1 player rolls his dice. Critical failure! No dick in pussy this round! The girl then throws a defensive spell: equips chastity belt (AC = 0). "No more pussy for you, nerd". Girl leaves and boy cries. Boy thinks better play a roque with lockpicking skills next time

 

[Ladonna]

Most WeGo RPG's have been poorly implemented or lazy, where everything is abstracted, with virtually no tactics involved. Try the combat engine in Knights of Legend and see what a good (albeit primitive and clumsy) version looks like.

 

[Sykar]

Full disclosure back when I was playing virgin Fallout 1 turn-based combat, a girl I was trying to get with started going out with a chad LoL player who smoked weed non-stop. This might have negatively affected my perception of wasting your life with TB combat games.

Imagine having sex turn based, the girl thinks. Virgin fallout 1 player rolls his dice. Critical failure! No dick in pussy this round! The girl then throws a defensive spell: equips chastity belt (AC = 0). "No more pussy for you, nerd". Girl leaves and boy cries. Boy thinks better play a roque with lockpicking skills next time

So what happens on a critical success?

 

[Ol' Willy]

I like how one of the leading arguments in favour of RTwP is still "it's better for thrashmobs". Maybe the failures of encounter design should be fixed in some other ways?

 

[Jigby]

Personally I think TB without animations is better for trash mobs than RT (old M&Ms, Berlin roguelikes etc.)

Of course these days you can just speedhack RT games to speedup animations so it's relative I suppose.